


Avatara

by jujubiest



Category: Carnivale, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Brotherly Love, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/F, F/M, Fire, Good and Evil, M/M, Sibling Rivalry, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 08:31:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1892253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the great war between Heaven and Hell, God created the Earth and gave dominion over it to the crafty ape he called Man. And to each generation was born a creature of light and a creature of darkness. And great armies clashed by night in the ancient war between good and evil. There was magic then, nobility, and unimaginable cruelty. And so it was until the day that the false sun fell at Stull, and man forever traded away wonder for reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avatara

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is a Carnivale/Supernatural crossover/fusion. Will be updated as I manage to figure out what the hell to do with each chapter. The mythologies of both shows are pretty complex and meshing them is going to be...interesting. Wish me luck!

Dean remembers—but distantly, like it was a dream he had and not something he really lived—seeing his mom nine months pregnant and practically glowing with joy as she pressed his tiny hand to her swollen belly and asked if he could feel his brother kicking. He remembers asking if Sammy—it was always Sammy, never “the baby” or “it” or “he,” always Sammy from the very beginning—could hear them talking to him. His mother smiled, beatific.

“I bet he can,” she said in a whisper, almost conspiratorially. “Do you have something to tell your little brother, Dean?” Dean nodded, and she told him—still smiling, so bright and wide it must have hurt—to go ahead. He leaned in close to her stomach and spoke softly, so he wouldn’t hurt Sammy’s ears or scare him.

“Hey Sammy,” he said. “I can’t wait for you to get here. I’m gonna be the best big brother anybody ever had. I’ll teach you all the rules so you don’t mess up and get in trouble, and we can play soccer, and when I get big enough Dad’ll show me how to drive, and then I can show _you_ how to drive, and we’ll go on adventures and see the whole world, and wait till you meet Mom for real. She’s the nicest, prettiest, most…awesomest mom in the whole world. It’s gonna be great, Sammy. It’s gonna be so great.”

When he looked up to ask if that was good, his mom was crying. But she wiped her eyes and told him they were “happy tears honey, don’t worry, I’m fine.” She cried a lot, he remembers, more and more, always while smiling and always saying they were happy tears.

She cried on his fourth birthday when she accidentally burned his cake, but he hugged her around the knees and told her he didn’t really need a cake anyway. She tossed the cake in the trash and ruffled his hair affectionately.

“Why don’t I make you a pie instead, baby?” She asked. He nodded vigorously, and she laughed and smiled again as she let him help her make a cherry-apple pie from scratch. Dean lived to make his mother laugh and smile. It made him feel ten feet tall.

After Sammy was born, he was brought slowly down to size. His mom wasn’t smiling when she came home from the hospital, and when he ran up and hugged her knees she didn’t budge, didn’t even seem to notice he was there. He looked up at her and grinned from ear to ear, but she only closed her eyes.

“Mom’s tired, Dean,” she said softly. “Mom’s just really tired today.” He nodded and let go, backed away and watched his mom walk up the stairs alone. He felt crushed. Did he forget for a little while when Dad came in carrying Sammy and told him to get a look at his new brother? Of course he did. He spent the rest of the afternoon making faces over Sam’s basinet.

But that night when Dad tucked him in instead of Mom, with a scratchy kiss to the forehead and no bedtime story, Dean remembered. He felt small. His room felt massive, the shadows long and so dark they seemed solid. He shivered and tucked his head under the blanket, squeezing his eyes shut and telling himself it would all be better tomorrow. Mom wouldn’t be so tired, and she would be smiling again.

The next time Dean saw his mother smile is a scar on his memory, an ugly black char-mark he wishes he could scrape away. He would wipe that whole day from his memory if he could, expunge it from the record of his life the way it deserved. Most of it was a lie, and the part of it that was true feels more like a horror film than a scene from his life as it was then. And yet, it was the scene that started everything else, or so it seemed at the time.

His Mom woke him up at the crack of dawn, grinning from ear to ear and giggling at his sleepy confusion.

“Wake up, baby,” she whispered. “We have things to do today!”

They dropped Sammy off at the babysitter’s and went to the park, just the two of them. She pushed Dean on the swings longer than she ever had before, even after she usually would have asked for a break because her arms were tired. He loved the feeling of soaring through the air, feet dangling. He loved best that moment at the top when he felt like maybe he would never come down again. She pushed him until he was finally bored and went to do something else of his own volition. And the whole time, she laughed and smiled.

They went to see Dad at work, to bring him his lunch. He looked so surprised, wrapped Mom up in a big hug and swung Dean around and around until he was breathless from laughing and almost too dizzy to stand upright. They went to the toy store, and she let him pick out any toy he wanted. He picked a bucket of Legos. She took him home and built Lego castles with him all day, and let him eat whatever he wanted, even if it was junk food, and never once reminded him not to spoil his dinner. She hugged him and kissed him and tickled him, and acted just like she always used to. And the whole day, she laughed and smiled.

She sang “Hey Jude” in the car on the way to pick up Sammy from the babysitter’s, and smiled when Dean sang along. She smiled as she tucked Sammy in for the night, and smiled at Dean as she lifted him up to say goodnight to his little brother. She smiled as she watched Dean run over to be scooped up in Dad’s arms when he came upstairs to say goodnight, and smiled as she sang him a lullaby and brushed his hair off his forehead.

And later that night, when he woke up frightened for no reason and padded down the hall toward his parents’ room, he found his brother’s nursery door open and his mom standing over Sammy’s cradle, smiling. She jerked when Dean walked in, turned to him slowly and backed away from him as he walked toward her, until he was standing by Sammy’s cradle and she was against the opposite wall, palms pressed flat to the surface. It looked like she’d gotten in the shower with her nightgown on: she was wet from head to toe, the white fabric clinging and semi-transparent, hair dripping onto the carpet around her feet. She stared at him as she pressed herself back against the wall harder, as if trying to put more space between them. She was shaking so hard that her breathing sounded almost like soft, giddy laughter.

“Mom?” Dean whispered softly, something like fear twisting in his gut. “Are you okay?”

His mom nodded her head at him shakily, slipping a hand into the pocket of her night dress and pulling something small and silvery out of it: his dad’s Zippo lighter.

“Shh-shh-sh-shhhhhh,” she juddered, reaching a hand toward him as if beckoning him to come to her. For the first time in his life, Dean did not feel compelled to run into her arms. “Shhhhh-sh-sh-shhh, baby,” she crooned. “It’s okay. It’s okay…th-they’re h-h-hap-ppy t-t-t-tears.”

She flipped the lighter open and flicked it, once. Dean started screaming.

* * *

 

Dean Winchester opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling above his head. He hasn’t dreamed about his mother’s death in years. Hell, he hasn’t even allowed himself to _think_ about it since he was six years old. Some wounds are just better left covered. But lately, he’s been having these dreams so vivid it’s like he’s there all over again. He is not a twenty-six-year-old drifter with a gun tucked in his jeans; he’s a four-year-old kid standing rooted to the floor like he was nailed there, watching with wide, frightened eyes as his mother sets herself ablaze. He can feel the heat of it on his skin, smell the smoke in the air, hear the blood pounding furiously in his ears fit to drown out his little brother’s shrieks from the crib.

He squeezes his eyes shut and gives himself a shake _. Snap out of it, man_. Unfolding himself from his cramped sleeping position in the front seat of his car, he rolls his head and pinches at his shoulders, willing the muscles there to unlock. Squinting at his watch, he groans when he sees that it’s barely even five in the morning. _No wonder it’s still so fucking dark._

If he goes back to sleep, he’ll watch his mother die again. He’ll smell burning flesh. He’ll watch her sink to the ground with her mouth open and her eyes closed, not making a single sound as her skin blackens and blisters and…

Dean gives himself another shake. He might as well get back on the road.  He’s still about a day’s drive from Palo Alto, so he could use the head start. He needs to have a chat with his little brother.


End file.
